This blog is dedicated to sharing the concept that our hands are essential to learning- that we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands. We abandon our children to education in boredom and intellectual escapism by failing to engage their hands in learning and making.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

tenoning jig

This weekend, I'm attempting to get two chapters off in the mail on my small cabinets book. It is a daunting organizational task as these first two chapters set the tone for the book. The first sidebar is about making this tenoning jig which will be seen in various applications making doors, cutting tenons and shaping parts. There are reasons to own a professional cast iron tenoning jig. I do. But there are reasons to make your own. I did, I do. And you can too.

I don't remember when I first saw a jig like this one in use. At the time, I didn't have the money to buy a professional model as that was before the huge influx of Taiwanese cast iron products that hit in the 1980s and 90s, so I had little choice but to make what I needed in the wood shop. Now, and as things are made easy for us, we rely less on our own inventive powers and are thus diminished in character and intellect.

But nothing can really stop us from making things on our own. It is a choice. Nothing can stop us from doing on our own or from harvesting the intrinsic rewards from having done so.

About Me

I have been a self-employed woodworker in Eureka Springs, Arkansas since 1976. I live with my wife Jean on a wooded hillside overlooking our beautiful historic community.
In addition to work in my wood shop, I teach children at the Clear Spring School in a program called "The Wisdom of the Hands." My 10th book, Tiny Boxes by Taunton Press in November 2016. I also write for Fine Woodworking and other woodworking magazines.
My resume can be downloaded at
www.dougstowe.com/resume.doc